Coalgate row: Sibal says BJP should ask its CMs to resign

Sep 08, 2012 |

Lucknow

Stepping up its offensive against the BJP, the government today said the Opposition party should ask its chief ministers to resign in the Coalgate row since the state governments decide who gets the mining lease.

“The basic question is that who executes the lease,” union HRD minister Kapil Sibal said, two days after the Centre made public letters written to it by the BJP and other the non-Congress state chief ministers strongly opposing auction of coal mines.

He said that if anyone should resign it should be the chief ministers of these states. The BJP has been demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Coalgate row.

“The BJP men, who are levelling allegations, should be asked to get resignation of their CMs that why they executed the lease,” he told a news conference. “Because the responsibility was theirs(since) they executed the lease and decided that in whose favour it would be done,” he claimed.

The Congress leader put the onus on the states in the Coalgate row while referring to questions being raised on what basis allocation of coal blocks was done and that allegations are being levelled against Centre’s officers.

Sibal said that under Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development Act) only the state governments have the right to execute lease. “Centre has no right in it. If any person has objection to the lease executed in favour of a particular person or company, whose responsibility was it,” he added.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/187378" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-a716323c42c2f07c487aa7498a926ed8" value="form-a716323c42c2f07c487aa7498a926ed8" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85866620" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>